Xbox Live’s Sex Pests ‘Move In On Prey Within Two Minutes’, Reports Metro

How’s this for a sensationalist, videogame-bashing headline: ‘Xbox paedophile predators 'move in on prey within two minutes of contact’'? If there was ever a reason to cry fowl of the mainstream presses misunderstanding and vindication of gaming, it’s right here. London’s daily free-sheet Metro today brings alarmist reporting and misplaced fear-mongering to an all-new high, reporting ‘alarming findings’ that makes the paedophile population of Xbox Live sound like a feral pack of ferocious lions stalking their evening meal across the dusty plains of online lobbies, leaderboards and friends lists. An image used of the first-generation Xbox is the icing on the cake.

“Sexual predators are taking advantage of young people’s willingness to add strangers as online contacts out of a sense of ‘competition’ over their popularity,” states the newspaper. “They are increasingly likely to use gaming platforms such as Xbox Live to target children, researchers say.”

“Many are spending up to six hours a day on online ‘fishing expeditions’ where they work through up to 200 contacts until they find a vulnerable child willing to interact with them.” According to researcher Prof Julia Davidson, who seems all too keen to throw further fuel on the Metro’s fire, “conversation between an online offender and a child can now become sexualised within two minutes”, adding “during interviews, offenders said they didn’t need to bother with a grooming process when they could immediately ask children for sex or to meet so they could abuse them.”

MSN Messenger, Yahoo Chat, MySpace, Facebook, Omegle, Chat Roulette… Our presence online and availability to meet with new people (you could call them ‘strangers’) through chat rooms, social networks or video chats has drawn unwarranted attention for years now. So to say Xbox Live or other online platforms (Sony’s Entertainment Network, Steam etc. are not at all mentioned) have risks associated with them by default is hardly anything new – of course there are those who will use online features to their inexcusable advantage.

But no, we have to point the finger at something in particular, something that hasn’t yet taken the brunt of all society’s ills. Say hello, Xbox Live. Parents, unplug the console, tidy away the controllers and burn the games.

Next Generation 'Xbox One' Announced

After much hype and speculation, Microsoft has officially unveiled their next generation console, the Xbox One. Don Mattrick (pictured) made the announcement to a huge round of applause, planning to make it the 'All-in-one' system in your living room.

It might have been months in planning and even longer in its development stages, but the Xbox 360 port of the phenomenally successful Minecraft had already gone profitable within an hour of going on sale this past Wednesday.

Game Review: Minecraft - Xbox 360 Edition

Notch's Minecraft truly is a phenomenon in gaming. In a couple of short years, the deviously-simple sandbox building game represents everything fundamentally great about indie game development. Going from a project created in the bedroom of the aforementioned Markus 'Notch' Persson and since riding on the back of nothing more than word alone (up until now, Minecraft has been entirely self-published), the game has now been played by millions and, along with it, earned its creator millions in the process.

The Sun now claims denied hacking is an "Xbox fraud cover-up"

The Sun have fought back against Microsoft's dismissal of its front page "exclusive," claiming Xbox Live was hacked by throwing out accusations of a cyber fraud "cover-up."

Earlier this week (Tuesday to be exact), The Sun ran a front page story in its newspaper about a "Crime Exclusive," reporting that thousands of Xbox Live accounts had been hacked, stealing millions of pounds in the process. Microsoft released a statement, denying claims of hacking, confirming that the infrastructure itself is safe, and stating that this was a case of a phishing scam (online attempts to con people into giving you their personal details).